Parents' Choice Foundation: Reviewing Children's Media Since 1978



Night-Night Lullabies

Night-Night Lullabies

1998 Music
Ages: Infant - 9 yrs.
Performed By: The Dream Factory
CD Price: $16.00
Tape Price: $11.00
Review:
The sweetness in this sojourn into the Land of Nod occasionally errs on the sticky side, but that’s a small flaw in a stand-out work by a notable group of artists, each with a singular style: Mary Jane Alm, Lee Blaske, Pat Frederick, Tab Laven, Kathy Mueller, Mark Mueller and Scott “Scooter” Nelson. “Wonderful Land of Dreams,” by Kathy Mueller, is a stunning highlight. “Lost in a Dream,” is a transporting fantasy by Laven: a child, “lying under the branch of the old willow tree,” imagines soaring into the sky, becoming the wind: “I’d make my home the top of the trees; I’d whistle down the mountains, make white caps on the seas...” Laven also performs “Ship of Dreams”, a tropical, instrumental sway, in which children can go to sea and “catch a breeze on a sleepy ocean, where dreams and imagination fill your sails.” “Lullaby Love”, by C. Decker Velie, Nelson and Mark Mueller, is a symphony of pop harmonies interwoven with “Brahm’s Lullaby”. “Beautiful Baby,” by Nelson and Steven C. Anderson, tends toward the sugary side of pop. Blaske’s instrumental versions of traditional tunes—“Hey Diddle Diddle,” “Goodnight Ladies,” and “Day is Done”--are luminous.
Lynne Heffley   ©1998 Parents' Choice
A long-time Parents' Choice music critic, Lynne was a staff writer for 25 years at the Los Angeles Times where she established and maintained the paper's first weekly children's arts and entertainment beat and was a general arts reporter. Now a freelance writer, Lynne works in the areas of non-profit communications, the arts and family entertainment (specializing in children's theater, music, audio books and book illustration). In her spare time, when she's not reading, Lynne is likely to be found strumming American Songbook standards and Tin Pan Alley novelty songs on one of her seven ukuleles.

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